Laugh-A-Lot
Jean leaned back against the lounge chair she was occupying, closing her eyes against the bright rays of the sun. August had proved to be a month of deadly heat and brutal humidity. She and Ororo had spent most of their days by the pool. It wasn't an old part of the mansion but a recent addition at the request of the students and Jean couldn't be more thankful.
"You'd think Mother Nature would take a hint," Ororo commented, turning to her redheaded companion. With the brutality of the weather, Ororo had been forced to make sure it rained at some point. Jean smiled.
"Wouldn't that make your life easier?" she asked, stretching languidly. Rogue, Bobby, Kitty and Peter were in the pool, laughing, splashing and goofing off like regular teens.
"Logan!" Rogue shouted suddenly. "Come swim with us."
Jean cracked open an eye to find Logan, and more surprisingly Scott, making their way around the edge of the pool. She found her eyes drawn to Logan, his chest bare and sweaty from what she assumed was training.
"In a minute," he told the teen, making his way around the final corner to where she and Ororo lounged. Jean resisted the urge to shiver at the wave of heat that flooded her mind as Logan's eyes took her in. She'd opted for her lighter-coloured bikini instead of her favourite black one to ward off some of the sweltering heat. Her baby blue suit, the one she currently wore, was skimpier than the black one and definitely less used because of it. Where her black one had large strips of fabric, this one had strings, both sets of the top currently tied behind her back instead of her neck and back as they were made.
"Ladies," he said smoothly and Jean lifted her sunglasses, perching them atop her head. She'd left her hair down, regardless of the way it stuck to the back of her neck, and knew from Logan's mind it spilled beautifully over the white cushions of her chair.
"Gentlemen," Ororo responded.
I forgot how beautiful she is.
Jean almost jumped for two reasons: 1) the lack of effort it had taken to slide into someone else's mind without fully being aware of it and 2) the words had been thought by Scott.
"Jean?" Ororo looked concerned. Jean smiled.
"It's nothing," she decided. "Just surprised me."
"What did?" Ororo asked, not convinced.
"It's nothing," she repeated, shaking her head. "Don't worry." As she met Logan's eyes she knew she was going to be questioned about it later.
"Logan! Are you coming?" Rogue called out again, poised on the diving board with her hands pressed to her hips.
"In a minute," he called back, his eyes – an interesting mix of appreciation and worry – not leaving Jean. Scott, on the other hand, had already dropped his things on the other side of Ororo.
"Hang on to these," Logan requested softly, lifting her feet to deposit his towel under them. Jean nodded in agreement, replacing her sunglasses and settling back again. Seconds later she heard, and felt, Logan cannonball into the water. She gasped as the droplets hit her skin.
"Logan!" she and Ororo shouted at the same time. He popped up with a mischievous grin on his face. Jean rolled her eyes behind her glasses.
"That was childish," she called to him, the smile tugging at the corner of her lips giving away her amusement.
"What else did you expect?" she vaguely heard Scott mumble. Jean held back a snarl but noticed Ororo take a swing, her expression telling him to behave. The jealousy she felt from Scott when Logan shot her a devilish grin gave her a hope of normalcy. Maybe there was a relationship to repair with Scott, even if it wasn't a romantic one.
Her sun was blocked a few minutes later and she groaned, looking up at Logan. She'd just started to doze off too…
"Come swimming," he requested. The playfulness rolled off him as he threatened to drop water on her. Just in case, she tied the neck strings of her bathing suit securely where they were supposed to be, careful not to catch her hair in the knot.
"Why?" she finally responded. Logan rolled his eyes.
"Do you need a reason? The day is boiling hot and the water's nice and cool," he answered.
"And we're a few people short for a good Marco Polo game," Kitty called. Jean heard Ororo groan softly from beside her and knew she was just as happy to be roped into the whole thing as Jean was.
"Can't it wait?" Jean whined. "I was just about to have a nap."
Logan didn't reply. Instead, he slipped one arm under her back, the other under her knees and lifted her off the chair. Jean squealed in protest, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"If you throw me in, you're coming with me," she warned. Logan chuckled.
"Red, I'm already wet." With that, he jumped into the pool. She pushed away from him when they were submerged, breaking the surface sputtering.
"Logan!" she exclaimed, splashing water at him when he surfaced. He laughed, splashing back at her. Jean was faster and ducked under the water. Logan splashed Rogue as a result.
"Hey!" the teen exclaimed indignantly, just as Jean popped out from under the water. Logan looked slightly shocked and Jean giggled, splashing more water at him. He mock glared seconds before lunging at her.
"You're going to get it," he growled as she squealed and kicked her legs towards him. The forced kicked water at him, giving her a curtain to use to get away. Logan countered by reaching under the water and gripping one of her ankles. With a yelp she was pulled under and towards him, his hands climbing up her leg until he had her pressed against him.
Then he full out dunked her.
This time, she came up indignant, but he was already striking out towards the deep end of the pool. She and Rogue exchanged glances, the latter slightly peeved she hadn't received an apology for Logan's earlier splashing, and headed after him. Didn't they always say two heads were better than one anyway?
Logan was treading water in the deep end with a satisfied smirk on his face. Jean stopped, Rogue stopping beside her in curiosity. Jean had sprouted her own smug grin. They stayed in that stare down, Rogue looking on in curiosity.
Then Logan's head plunged under the water.
Rogue looked confused and stunned for a moment before she noticed the smug look on Jean's face. The laughter bubbled up from her throat before she was fully aware of it and spilled out of her mouth. Logan re-emerged, looking more like a drowned dog than a human.
They started as suppressed chuckles when Jean heard Rogue's laughter and intensified into giggles when she looked at him. BY the time he got over the shock and understood exactly what had happened, Jean's chuckles-turned-giggles had morphed into a full out laughing fit. Then his shock was for a completely different reason.
Logan was never one for clichéd phrases, never really one for sentimentality, but the feelings that swept through him at her laughter couldn't be described any other way. The sound was literally music to his ears since he hadn't heard her laugh like that in a long time. The normalcy hit him in a wave of water from Bobby's cannonball.
"That wasn't fair," he called to her, watching her laughter die down. Jean shrugged unsympathetically, sticking her tongue out at him.
"You never said anything about not using my teke," she pointed out smartly. "And you started it." He had to give her that. He started towards her again and she instinctively moved back, not quite trusting him not to attack her.
"This is true, but you take all of the fun out of it when you use the mind stuff." The smile she graced him with was mind-blowing.
"I think it evens out the playing field," she retorted. "Your brute strength against my mental abilities." He lunged at her, but she managed to evade him, her laughter bubbling up again. Only half-heartedly attacking her – most of his mind was singularly focused on committing this moment to memory in case it never happened again – he realized he wanted to remember this moment forever.
Just in case.
Jean sat beside Logan on the roof later that night, her head pillowed on his shoulder. How it had turned from her spot to their spot she wasn't quite sure, but she wasn't upset by it. Instead she enjoyed the ability to share something like this with another person. Especially, it seemed, if that person was Logan.
He'd been secretive when he climbed up behind her, surprising her with pillows and a light sheet to cover themselves. She'd forgone her pillow almost immediately in favour of his seemingly more comfortable shoulder. Suddenly, Logan moved and she dropped her head to the pillow with a disgruntled groan. She furrowed her brow but didn't open her eyes when she felt something walking across her stomach.
"Open your eyes, Jeannie," he requested. She blinked them open, catching the colour orange and pausing to take in the detail of what she assumed was her newest Care Bear. Finally, she took the bear from his hands, looking at him curiously.
"Laugh-a-Lot," he answered her unasked question, watching her trace her fingers over the laughing sun on the bear's belly. He watched her with the bear, a rare fondness slipping into his gaze. Understanding blossomed in her gaze.
"Today."
Logan nodded. "She's supposed to help people laugh," he agreed. She smiled shyly, stretching out muscles she hadn't realized were sore. It was a good sore, she decided, stemming from an afternoon spent in the sun and frolicking in the pool. The exhaustion she felt was contented.
"Today was nice," she said, her eyes still not meeting his. He settled down beside her again, her head almost immediately coming to rest on his shoulder. Her hand, the bear tucked under her upper arm, settled on his chest, just above his heart and he was suddenly struck with how intimate they must look. Again, he reared in his attraction. He'd made a promise to himself not to burden her with his feelings for her until he was sure she was settled back in the mansion, back into her life, and as close to the Jean she'd been before Alkali Lake as possible.
"It was," he agreed. "But you were unfair."
She snorted. "You started it."
"Are we going to do this again?" They'd had the same argument on and off all afternoon, especially when she used her telepathic and telekinetic abilities to dunk him more than once.
Again, she snorted, the humour of the situation hitting her. "You started it," she repeated, a devilish smile flitting across her face. He groaned, realizing his mistake. The hand that had been trailing her spine over her t-shirt stopped slowly and she looked up at him.
"What is it?"
"At the pool, when you jumped," he told her and she knew what he was asking.
"Can't we leave it alone?"
Logan shook his head. "I want to know what had you shaken up."
"I'm not in danger, Logan, nor is anyone else here. Can't that be enough?"
"It disturbed you, Jean. That's reason for it not to be enough."
"A lot of things disturb me," she answered defensively. "Spiders, for one, snakes, ghost stories…"
"You're afraid of ghost stories?"
She nodded. "Long story."
"That's not the point," he said. As much as he enjoyed listening to Jean's fears, getting even that little insight into her life, he was more concerned with her jitters from the afternoon. She seemed, however, to be a bit lost in her thoughts.
"Death, destruction, the disgusting human rights in most of the third world countries…" she continued. "My parents."
"What?" If she's admitted that to change the subject, she'd picked a good one, but he was sure the pain that floated over her face when she realized what she said was real and accidental.
"Sorry."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
She shrugged. "The usual intolerance story. My dad thought I was sick."
He winced. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It was one of the main reasons I got to come here and meet everyone, have the life I had."
"Have," he corrected.
"It's not the same anymore, Logan. Things have changed."
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," he told her, words that had become one of his favourite sayings when things got tough. She smiled slightly.
"Good on paper, hard in practice," she responded, her gaze dropping back to the bear.
"You'll pull through, Jean. You've always been strong."
"It's been a lot," she admitted. "Dealing with the fear, then the teaching, then Ororo and the professor… and that doesn't include Scott and that drama."
"You'll make it," he assured her again.
"How can you be so calm, so sure about it?"
"They call it faith. It's something I picked up here after a while. A lot of faith and hope in this place."
"A lot of family," she agreed.
"We are a family," he told her. "Families, I found out, are supposed to be unconditional."
"Again with the insight," she exclaimed, though the happiness and pride in her voice gave away her real feelings.
"Yeah well, maybe it's just you."
"Better someone than no one at all, right?"
"Exactly."
I had to rewrite the last part cuz I didn't like it, but this chapter and I eventually found a compromise that suited us both.
Can you believe I aimed for 1000 words a chapter? Heh, mighta overdone that a bit... not that you guys particularly care!
Thanks to everyone that's reviewed. For a section with so many unfinished stories and few stories in total, I'm really awed that you guys love this one so much. With no exams and school done I should have tonnes of time to finish this, along with the four other stories I'm writing (I know, I'm nuts. Can you believe I actually keep all of the storylines straight?).
I'm having a really hard time writing the next chapter though, so it might be longer than expected before I get it up. For now, I'm going to post this one, but make sure you're aware that it could be another week, if not 2 before I've untangled my writer's block enough to come up with an idea for the next bear...
